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Laura Poitras on Filming Edward Snowden and Her New Documentary, Citizenfour

Much of Laura Poitras’s new film, Citizenfour, which had its world premiere on Friday at the New York Film Festival and opens widely on October 24, unfolds in a small, claustrophobia-inducing hotel room in Hong Kong. That’s where she first filmed the NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who is now frequently called the most wanted man in the world. Poitras began filming mere minutes after meeting Snowden in person for the first time, and continued filming him as the impact of what he had leaked to her and her reporting partner, Glenn Greenwald, reverberated around the world.

The film is riveting, in no small part because what we are witnessing is the human drama behind events we have already experienced as consumers of news. To remind: first came word of a top secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over the telephone records of millions of its American customers to the NSA. Then there was the report that the NSA and the FBI were tapping directly into the servers of nine American internet companies. Next Poitras and Greenwald released footage of Snowden himself. All of that happened in four days, four of eight days that Snowden spent in the hotel room in Hong Kong, shortly after meeting Poitras and Greenwald, and shortly before he went underground.

Poitras knew to film Snowden because before any of this—before her byline was in newspapers, and on a Pulitzer—she was a documentarian. Her extraordinary 2006 film My Country, My Country, about a Sunni doctor in Baghdad who runs for office, was nominated for an Oscar. That film was the first in a trilogy about post-9/11 America, the final installment of which she was in the throes of making when, in early 2013, she was first contacted by Snowden. The work-in-progress was about domestic surveillance, something Poitras knew more than a little about, and it involved several protagonists. After the encounter in Hong Kong, her film on surveillance became Citizenfour, so named for the handle Snowden used in their first encrypted exchanges. Yesterday, in a small room in a hotel not unlike the one in which much of her film takes place, Laura Poitras spoke with Vogue.com about meeting Edward Snowden and releasing her much-anticipated film.

In Snowden's first communications with you, he said that he didn’t choose you, rather, “You chose yourself.” Did you understand immediately the meaning of that statement?

You don't see it in the film, but he said, "I didn't pick you. You did." And then he said that the surveillance you've experienced means you've been selected, and then you'll learn more about this. And so then I wrote back and said, "Hey, wait a second. Have you seen my file?" That's what I asked. "Have you seen my file and how do I know that this is not entrapment? And how do I know you're legitimate?" And then he wrote back and said, "No, I haven't seen your file," and that it's not entrapment because, "I'm never going to ask anything of you. I'm just going to tell you things." And then we sort of continued from there. I think he appreciated the fact that I was a bit cautious.

We were sort of just trying to feel both of each other out. But I think that the fact that I had been put on the watch list and spent so many years trying to do things to protect my communications from the government, to protect source material, that it kind of prepared me for Snowden. You know? Had I not been through that, I would not have been prepared. I already knew how to use a lot of the tools he was asking me to use. It's sort of an ironic unintended consequence that the U.S. government sort of taught me how to secure my communications because of the fact that they had stopped me for so many years.

You exchanged encrypted messages with him for some time before meeting him. At what point would you say you fully grasped the ramifications of his actions?

Pretty early on. I mean the first email came in January 2013. And that was a very simple email—just basically saying, "I'd like to get your encryption key. Your public key," which I sent back. The next response was the one that you see at the beginning of the film where he says, "I'm a member of the intelligence community and this won't be a waste of your time." The email that came after that was the sort of "holy shit" email, which happened in early February. And that is in the film where we're seeing the construction of the Utah Data Center where he says, "This, too, I can prove. This, too, I can prove." And when I got that, I was like, “OK, if this is legit, this is definitely the most risky project I've ever worked on." And I had a pretty good sense. My gut was that he was legitimate. That it was legitimate. Even though the claims were kind of staggering and unprecedented.

And once you had decided that he was, in fact, credible, did you know you were going to film him?

I didn't. For a while we were exchanging emails, and I actually said, "Wouldn't it be safer to meet in person? Even with encryption, there are risks." And he said, "No, I am not able to meet in person." And so I thought I was communicating, for a few months, with somebody who was an anonymous source whose name I would never know who would at some point provide documentation. And then I would report on it. And then I think about April, we were corresponding, and he said something like, "I just want you to know that my identity will be revealed." Because he didn't want to hide it. He didn't want to hide his identity, he didn't want others to be blamed or investigated for his actions. And I think he also thought that he wouldn't be able to hide the footprint. And so as soon as he told me he intended that his name would be associated with these disclosures, then I said, "I want to film you. And I want to be able to understand your motivation." And his first response was no. He wasn't interested because he didn't want the story to be about him. And then I was able to convince him to meet and film. That happened in April.

Given the pressure you must have been feeling, it's astonishing that you were able to begin filming minutes after meeting him. Did you ever consider not filming the first encounter or were you prepared to film out of the gate?

There was a tremendous amount of pressure and tension and anxiety in the room. But there was a lot leading up to actually being able to get on the airplane. And there were a lot of conversations, a lot of meetings. There was a point at which The Washington Post decided not to send someone. And there was a lot of pressure on me not to go—that it was risky. And then I reached the conclusion that I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't go, even though it comes with risks. And then Glenn got involved and we went. Actually, let me step back. Snowden in February said that the reporting would require more than one person and then he recommended I involve Glenn. So I actually had involved Glenn before then.

When we went to Hong Kong, I knew that Glenn was going to hit the ground running, because I know Glenn. There wasn't going to be a lot of small talk, and I'm a filmmaker. And so I thought, like, "I'm not going to waste time sitting around and saying, 'Oh, boy. I wish I filmed that.'" I knew he was going to hit the ground running, so I took my camera out immediately.

Did you foresee at all that there would be actual news stories filed while you were with him? And that you would be filming Snowden as the story broke?

I didn't have a clear picture. We knew that there was a bit of a clock that was ticking. Because Snowden had left the country. And then as soon as we arrived there, there were people who were aware that he was missing, right? So there's a bit of a clock. But I think Glenn was—it was really his vision to just be really aggressive and report quickly. He says, "I woke up this morning and I started writing stories." You know? Glenn was motivated to do that. He was the one who discovered the Verizon document. I hadn't seen that document. There were a lot of documents, and I hadn't begun to process them. And he just found that one and said, "OK. This is what we're going to lead with," which was, in retrospect, really the brilliant choice of how to do the first reporting. But we didn't know. We didn't know anyone was going to pay attention.

What were your first impressions of Snowden?

We were shocked that he was so young. And then shocked at how articulate and composed he was. It was very clear that he had made a choice that he had made peace with, no matter what the consequences were. That he felt that this information belonged in the public consciousness or the public domain and that the public had a right to know and that whatever risks for him were worth taking. So that was very, very clear. He was so calm. We were nervous and disoriented and he was just like, "Basically, I'm here to help you understand the magnitude of this information.” I think he didn't know how much time he would have to be able to be in communication with us.

How did your impressions of him evolve over those days in the hotel room as the story broke, and he watched it break, and you filmed him watching it break?

It was extraordinary to witness how calm he remained, you know? He knew on one hand that the world was paying attention. And that, I think, was gratifying. But he was also getting messages from people that he loved that his actions had created hardship for them, right? You see in the film that Lindsay is visited at her home on the same day. So we have the Verizon story that broke, and then on that same day the NSA knocks on his door where his partner is living. And you can feel, like, the sort of pain that he experienced.

When he left the hotel room, did you think you'd ever see him again?

No. I mean, I really, I didn't know. I mean it was really uncertain.

Do you think that having an identified rather than an anonymous leaker—that Snowden's decision to out himself rather than remain unidentified as Chelsea Manning attempted to—affected the way that the news was received, and the conversation that it created?

I think it was a game changer in the sense that he was able to articulate his motivations before the government could spin a narrative around him. And I think it changed the dynamic. Because he was somebody you had to listen to. And I think that Chelsea Manning, who also acted as a whistle-blower as an act of conscience, didn't have that opportunity. She was held incommunicado and couldn't articulate it. So I do think for Snowden it did change the way he was perceived.

Have any of the outcomes—policy-wise or outcry-wise—been fortifying to you as you've been making this film?

How do you mean, fortifying?

Do you feel that anything's changed? Is it heartening in any way what has happened since? Do you think that people are appropriately outraged?

I think that there's a shift in consciousness, and that's a starting point. And that's great. And then you have shifts like technological shifts. You have companies who are going to offer more easy forms of encryption because it's not easy right now. And I think that those things—those are things that we don't see on the surface, but those are happening. You hear about those things happening. I think the programs are all still in place, and it's hard to know at the government level how much there is a willingness to change. But I do think that there is movement. I think that there's increased awareness of the desire for privacy and also international pressure. That privacy is a right and that it's not a right that only exists for Americans, but that citizens of other countries also have a right for privacy.

Very often the average citizen's reaction to news about violations of privacy is, "I have nothing to hide." We almost think of the right to privacy as something that we don't all necessarily need, and therefore violations of those rights as something that happens only to people who "have something to hide," or people with powerful enemies, or people who happen to be celebrities with nude photographs on the iCloud. But there's an extraordinary quote in your film: "What we used to call liberty and freedom we now call privacy." I wondered if you've come to adopt that belief.

I actually think everybody has something to hide. And that people who say that they don't aren't really confronting the question. If I said, "I want to set up a camera in your bathroom . . ." Right? Or, "I want to set up a camera in your bedroom." Or, "I want to turn on the camera that's on your laptop.” Is that OK with you? Is that OK? Say the government says, "We want to turn on all of those cameras that all of us have on our laptops. We'll have them on so that the government can make sure that we're all safe.” How do you think people would respond?

I don't think people would want that.

Right. People would be outraged. I also think that if you look at countries where there are really active surveillance states. You know, I'm right now living in what was the former East Germany. Are we saying that the Stasi was not a problem? That if your neighbor was telling them who you hung out with—There are really pernicious uses in terms of if the government is trying to know who you spend time with, what you think, what you do. The sort of "I have nothing to hide" thing is really naive. Because you do have something to hide. Maybe you have an illness and you want to look something up and you don't want your employer to know that. I think everybody really does have something to hide. And things that they want to keep private.

In the film, you disclose that a second higher-level source has leaked to you that there are 1.2 million Americans on the watch list. Do you have plans to release any further news stories drawn from the documents given to you by Snowden or information provided by that other source?

The Snowden reporting is ongoing. There's much more that we're doing. In terms of other sources, I’m not going to go into any details, but I can say that there are multiple sources that inform our journalism that I have worked on with The Intercept and with Der Spiegel and other outlets, and that all journalists require the bravery of sources who come forward and whistle-blowers. And that hopefully what the film talks about is the kind of threat to them. And the sacrifices they make. And so in this case, in terms of the watch list, I'm somebody who has actually been on a watch list for years. And so I'm incredibly grateful to the source to make that public because the government's position has been—it wouldn't even acknowledge the existence of a watch list, let alone why you're put on it. And I just think that this is fundamentally opposed to basic rights of due process.

In your past films, you have preferred to remain in the background, and with this one, it was obviously going to be impossible. Once you decided to film Snowden, you were going to be part of the story in a way that you had not previously been. How have you coped with becoming part of the story, and has it been difficult for you?

I mean it was obvious that it was a subjective film. That I was telling a story that I was a part of. And so I used I often in it, which I had never used in my previous films. And that was absolutely necessary. And how to do that, artistically—there was a lot of back-and-forth with myself and my editor, Mathilde Bonnefoy, in terms of how to do that. And we ultimately decided that I was kind of the narrator of the film. I did some filming where I was on-camera, but then it was weird. It was like shifting from first-person to third-person. And that was just weird. So I'm behind the scenes, but it's clear that I'm a participant in what's unfolding. That's a different question from having people write about me or whatever. Those are different questions. So the film, that's easy. Easy choice. Of course, it has to be a subjective perspective and the audience has a right to know that. But I'm also a super-private person, and I've been working, and not doing a lot of media, partly because I wanted to focus on the film and not enter into a feedback loop or repeat stories too often. That I needed to maintain an emotional connection to the material and tell the story that I wanted to tell and try to forget about all that outside world stuff. So sort of maintain that kind of creative space and not keep in mind that it's a big story that people pay attention to, so that I could make the film. And so now in terms of transitioning, I mean, I just premiered it on Friday. So . . . today's Sunday? It’s a bit early to know.

The reaction so far has been overwhelmingly positive, with a lot of people saying that it reads as a vindication of Snowden. How do you feel? How does it feel to finally have it out?

When I was in the room on Friday watching it, I could feel that people related to him in a way that I felt was really powerful. That what he did and why he did it comes through. And I think that that is something that I have experienced, and I think it's great that other people will also now be able to experience it.